Sandplay is a creative and nurturing way of working which allows you to express yourself openly and freely and to see your world clearly, including those parts which may be unconscious to you. It allows you the opportunity to make the positive changes you would like in your life and bring about healing and growth.

Playing in the sand is something that most of us have done at some point in our childhood. Therefore sandplay can work as a link, a reminder, a way of re-discovering hidden or forgotten memories or qualities from our childhood, and bring them into consciousness for healing and growth.

Sandplay consists of a tray of sand and a range of miniature symbols of people, animals, houses, cars, flowers, objects, etc., all symbols that represent something of the real world. You sit comfortably with a sand tray in front of you and you may first just like to touch the sand and allow your hands to move through it however you would like to. There is no right or wrong way to work with Sandplay. Some people will just work with the sand, it may be wet or dry, some people will use a lot of symbols and some use only a few. For some the scene will be created in one go, for others it will be a moving scene. What is created in the sandtray is never judged or interpreted definitively, it is acknowledged and honoured for the wisdom it can reveal and the healing it can bring.

Sandplay is very effective in situations for which words are either absent or too difficult to find. Situations may have come about very early in life before a language was formed however they still need an expression in order for them to be understood. Sandplay allows you to work with painful or confusing situations while allowing yourself a safe distance from them. In the sandtray, you are free to move or rearrange threatening situations or difficult people and find ways to support yourself. Once this is 'played out' in a sandtray, it can loosen the fear and anxiety in your real life situation and allow you to see more clearly how you can deal with the situation now. Sandplay can help you to make sense out of confusing thoughts and feelings and by seeing this in the tray, can often facilitate deep understanding and healing.